And when the storm was subsiding back came the bar steamer's captain.
“No going out to-day,” said he; “I wouldn't dare risk the bar. Look at the surf!” and he pointed across the swamp to where we could again see the great white clouds of foam rising against the horizon. “To-morrow,” he said, “very early”; and he went away, and my host, soaked through and through, came back and told us what the storm had looked like from Beachtown.
The next morning was simply glorious. The world was fresh and clean and newly washed, and the river, from my window, looked like a brightly polished mirror.
“It'll be a bad bar, though,” said my host, shaking his head. “Better stay.”
It was very kind of him, but I felt I had trespassed on their kindness long enough; besides, there were other parts of the Coast I wished to see, and I felt I must take this opportunity of getting out of Addah. What was a bad bar? I had faced the surf before. So I bid them farewell, with many grateful thanks, and went on board, and in all the glory of the morning we set off down the river.
I was the only white passenger on board, and was allowed to stand on the bridge beside the wheel. Behind me was a little house wherein I might have taken shelter, but I thought I might as well see all there was to be seen; besides, I held my camera in my hand and proposed to take photographs of this “bad bar.”
The mouth of the Volta is utterly lonely looking. A long sandpit ran out on the right hand, whereon grew a solitary bush, blighted, for there was not a sign of a leaf upon it, and to the left was also sand, with a few scattered palms. I fancy there must have been a native hut or two, though I do not remember them, for I remember the captain saying, “We have to make our own marks. When you get a hut in line with a certain tree you know you are in the channel.” I was glad to hear there was a channel, for to my uninitiated eyes we seemed heading for a wild waste of boiling water, worse than anything I had ever conceived of, and yet I was not unaccustomed to surf, and had faced it before now in a surf boat. Never again shall I face surf with equanimity. I tried to carry out my programme, but I fear I must have been too upset to withdraw the slides, for I got no photographs. Presently we appeared to be right in the middle of the swirl. The waves rose up like mountains on either side, and towards us would come a great smooth green hill of water which towered far above our heads and then, breaking, swept right over us with a tremendous crash. I can see now the sunlight on that hill; it made it look like green glass, and then, when the foam came, there were all the colours of the rainbow. Again and again the two men at the wheel were flung off, their cloths seemed to be ripped from them as if they had been their shells, and the ship trembled from stem to stern and stood still. I thought, “Is this a bad bar? I'm afraid, I'm afraid,” but as the captain came scrambling to the wheel to take the place of the men who had been thrown off I did not quite like to say anything. It is extraordinary how hard it is to make one believe there really is anything to fear, and I should hate to be a nuisance at a critical moment, so I said to the captain--he and I and the German engineer were the only white people on board: “It's magnificent.”